How-To: MacOS X Firewire HDTV recording

[Paul_Malloy]

I have read the first ten pages of this string and done a Google search, but I am still confused. All the messages I have read seem to deal with recording from an over-the-air signal or a settop box to the Mac using the Firewire SDK programs, where the media files then reside for editing or playing.

Like many people, my STB is already a DVR and contains movies, programs and other files that I have recorded using the program guide and scheduling functionality of the STB. Is it possible to merely copy these files via Firewire using software from the Firewire SDK, rather than recording a stream on the Mac itself?

[thecaptain2279]

Originally Posted by Flyinace2000

don't spend to much on them. Get them from one of the links at the top of the page. monoprice is a good bet

Thank you very much for that. I was looking around and the best price for Belkin or Monster was over $30. Went to monoprice, and with 2-3 day shipping, total was $7.67 for a 6pin/6pin 6 ft, black. Sweet deal

thanks again.

[Freddy B.]

Originally Posted by Paul_Malloy

Is it possible to merely copy these files via Firewire using software from the Firewire SDK, rather than recording a stream on the Mac itself?

No, it's not possible to copy the pre-recorded shows from your DVR as you would from a firewire hard drive (unless you have a TIVO, in which case it is done through ethernet).

You can, however, play a recorded show from your DVR and catch the stream on your Mac using AVCapture, etc., assuming the show is flagged "Copy Freely".

[Paul_Malloy]

Originally Posted by Freddy B.

You can, however, play a recorded show from your DVR and catch the stream on your Mac using AVCapture, etc., assuming the show is flagged "Copy Freely".

Thanks. Are these flags set by the broadcaster or can they be manipulated by the user?

[HealeyGuy]

Originally Posted by Paul_Malloy

Thanks. Are these flags set by the broadcaster or can they be manipulated by the user?

Copy freely is set by the cable company. Comcast in Eugene, Oregon, has copy freely on most of the channels that are in its basic digital package and some of its extended package. There are a few non-network HD channels that are copy freely as well as all but one of the network HD channels (I can't copy ABC for some reason). You won't see any premium channels that are copy freely. In those cases you have to make copies via S-Video rather than Firewire.

My understanding is that Comcast can restrict digital copying any way they choose so my situation may change at any time. They're adding a bunch of HD channels on May 1 and I wonder how that will change my copy freely options.

Meanwhile, the latest ElGato EyeTV Hybrid and 250+ reportedly will tune and record copy freely stations from cable. My year-old EyeTV Hybrid can't do this. I want to get the new one and try it out because it will save me from having to do the transfer from my DVR except when the program I want to transfer is saved to the DVR's hard drive.

[Paul Chiu]

for anyone here in new york city, the exciting news is that time warner cable has opened their pockets and bought in tons of additional bandwidth so now after 4/30/2008, there are some 40 new HDTV channels. some, like CNN-HD and FOX Business-HD are just great for news and stock junkies like me.

best is that these QAM delivered shows can be captured to my macbook pro using just a simple firewire 400 cable and iRecord software.


these are 2 stills captured off channel 743 FOX-HD this afternoon. The 720p quality is good enough even when freezed and downloaded.






paul

[wilsonsoohoo]

So I see you probably watch the news for the babes . . .
:-)

[Paul Chiu]

i was amazed how sharp the letters looked on the right and bottom!

Originally Posted by wilsonsoohoo

So I see you probably watch the news for the babes . . .
:-)

[KavMan]

Originally Posted by Paul Chiu

i was amazed how sharp the letters looked on the right and bottom!

Is there a post you followed in this thread that set you up or did you just follow the instructions from the 1st post. That looks kind of old from 2004.

Maybe you can write a step by step on how you setup your mbp?

Thanks

[Paul Chiu]

I have tried this with 10.4 and now works with 10.5.2

1. get the latest firewire SDK software suite from apple.
http://developer.apple.com/sdk/#FireWireX


2. get irecord.app from
http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/
beta 0.5 works for me


3. after you have your firewire cable from your HD-DVR connected with the MAC running Leopard, start the HD program on the cable box and run irecord. i use an external drive connected with SATA cables and adaptor. depending on the bit rate of the hd program and 1080i or 720p, an hour can be nearly 10gb so an external SATA drive is essential.

4. if irecord cannot capture the HD program, try AVCvideocap.app from the apple sdk firewire kit.

5. i find that one of these 2 works 80%+ of the time.

6. playback of the m2t file with VLC under MAC or powerdvd under windows. yes! while some captured m2t may not play with VLC on a mac, it may play with powerDVD under windows XP or vista. so, be ready to copy over the captured program so a windows pc can read it before deleting as DOA.

paul

Originally Posted by KavMan

Is there a post you followed in this thread that set you up or did you just follow the instructions from the 1st post. That looks kind of old from 2004.

Maybe you can write a step by step on how you setup your mbp?

Thanks

[Joann]

Routines from the Firewire SDK are now compiled directly into the MythTV executables for MacOS. I've had no trouble recording to a G5 tower or to an intel mini from my Motorola 6412.

[cavalierlwt]

I use an old G4 1.25Mhz Mac Mini to record via firewire, using AVCvideocap. It handles the recording no problems at all, even though it can't play back the files. The iRecord app seems great, more advanced, but for some reason it seems to fail to record once in a while, either updates or screensavers seem to preempt it somehow.
Also, I've found that for either program, changing the channel via program and then immediately recording causes a garbled recording. In experimenting I found that there needed to be a few seconds pause between the channel change and the recording. I ended up just setting the channel by hand and not using the program to change channels.

[KavMan]

Originally Posted by Paul Chiu

I have tried this with 10.4 and now works with 10.5.2

1. get the latest firewire SDK software suite from apple.
http://developer.apple.com/sdk/#FireWireX


2. get irecord.app from
http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/
beta 0.5 works for me


3. after you have your firewire cable from your HD-DVR connected with the MAC running Leopard, start the HD program on the cable box and run irecord. i use an external drive connected with SATA cables and adaptor. depending on the bit rate of the hd program and 1080i or 720p, an hour can be nearly 10gb so an external SATA drive is essential.

4. if irecord cannot capture the HD program, try AVCvideocap.app from the apple sdk firewire kit.

5. i find that one of these 2 works 80%+ of the time.

6. playback of the m2t file with VLC under MAC or powerdvd under windows. yes! while some captured m2t may not play with VLC on a mac, it may play with powerDVD under windows XP or vista. so, be ready to copy over the captured program so a windows pc can read it before deleting as DOA.

paul

The 1st step you posted is getting SDK software suite. Is there steps on what I need to do with it before going to step 2? I'm totally new to Apple, I have no idea what's going on lol. Waiting for my MBP to come so I just wanted a heads up of what's ahead of me.

I knew exactly what to do via the PC but most people like me couldn't get glitch free results with it so I had to get an Apple which I really didn't want to lol.

Thanks for the help

[thecaptain2279]

Hey

I am very new to Macs and just started capturing from my SA8300HD. I used iRecord and it captured about 4 mins for a total of 299 mb. I see the m2t file in my movies folder, but I cannot play it to check to see if it worked.

I have d/led VLC and played a reg mpg2 vid without issue, but I cannot get this m2t file to play to see if I did this correct or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

[Paul Chiu]

k-man,

same history here.... i tried for years to capture using windows with many computers and none gave me clean artifacts free results.

with apple mbp and leopard 10.5.2, i am getting a lot of clean captures.

after step 1. install according to instructions. avcvideocap.app is an important app you'll use.

irecord.app is the other app for capture.

the only other thing you'll need is a SATA connector into your MBP, about $110 and an external SATA hard drive. i got a 750gb external SATA and it's nearly full with HD shows.

that's it.

please post once your MBP is in.

paul

Originally Posted by KavMan

The 1st step you posted is getting SDK software suite. Is there steps on what I need to do with it before going to step 2? I'm totally new to Apple, I have no idea what's going on lol. Waiting for my MBP to come so I just wanted a heads up of what's ahead of me.

I knew exactly what to do via the PC but most people like me couldn't get glitch free results with it so I had to get an Apple which I really didn't want to lol.

Thanks for the help

[Paul Chiu]

captain,

welcome to MAC

that m2t file needs to be played with powerdvd if it were to play at all.
so copy that onto a hard drive that can be read with windows and play it with poweredvd version 7 or version 8.

after you capture from 8300HD onto MAC controlled hard drive using avcvideocap.app or irecord.app, the compressed hd file may not play with MAC version of VLC or the MAC DIVX player, so try doing the above to see if that m2t file is really junk or not.

hope this helps

paul

Originally Posted by thecaptain2279

Hey

I am very new to Macs and just started capturing from my SA8300HD. I used iRecord and it captured about 4 mins for a total of 299 mb. I see the m2t file in my movies folder, but I cannot play it to check to see if it worked.

I have d/led VLC and played a reg mpg2 vid without issue, but I cannot get this m2t file to play to see if I did this correct or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

[cavalierlwt]

If you're getting unplayable files, you may be trying to record from channels that are flagged as 'Record Once' or 'Never record' (something like that), in other words channels that are restricted. The only channels you can record playable files from are flagged 'Record Freely'. For instance, I can record all local networks, SciFi channel, Discovery channel etc, but not HBO, Cinemax etc. The file for restricted channels are just random garbage.

Also, I'm using a regular USB 2.0 hard drive for my captures, it doesn't give me any problem. I there a reason you guys need a SATA drive with MPB?

[thecaptain2279]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Cavalier, the program I am recording is from my DVR's hard drive and was recorded from CBSHD.

Paul,

I think my problem is not that VLC won't play the file, its the file itself. I don't think I captured it properly. I can load the file into VLC, but when I hit play, it runs right through and stops, less than 4 secs. I click on the more info tab and check the stats of the file, and the video has all zeroes as well as the audio, so I assume I did not capture it correctly.

When I did the capture it said recording pending on the bottom while it said recorded and showed a time above. Can you let me know the proper settings to use to for recording from the hard drive, channel 1000, etc. I don't think I set it up right.

Again, really appreciate you taking the time to post a reply, thank you so much.

[thecaptain2279]

Hey

So I gave this another try just a minute ago. What I did different was changed the channel from recording "000" to "1000" which is my DVR playback channel.

The bottom now said "recording event" I let it record for about 1:30 just for a test and then stopped event. It saved another 200 mb mt2 file.

I opened VLC again and loaded it on the playlist. When I hit play I received this error message:

ps:cannot peek
main: no suitable demux module for ///users/***/movies/untitled 002.m2t

Any idea what this means or how I can possibly fix this?

thanks

[thecaptain2279]

Hey

I gave the AVCapture a try and it recognized the device and I started to play my recorded CBSHD program of the DVR hard drive.

In the EMI section it said "copy once" and from my understanding that means it cannot be captured correct?

Any way around this?

[HealeyGuy]

Originally Posted by thecaptain2279

Hey

I gave the AVCapture a try and it recognized the device and I started to play my recorded CBSHD program of the DVR hard drive.

In the EMI section it said "copy once" and from my understanding that means it cannot be captured correct?

Any way around this?

My understanding is there is no way to make a Copy Once program playable on a computer. You would need to capture it with an analog-to-digital device connected via S-video or composite video.

[thecaptain2279]

Thanks for the reply, thats what I figured.

[cavalierlwt]

Technically, public networks are not supposed to be restricted like that, they're supposed to be 'copy freely'. Usually the culprit is Time Warner cable. Comcast is pretty cool about what they flag as protected, but Time Warner Cable fights it like tooth and nail because they know the FCC too busy to enforce the laws against them. The device that can record and play back 'copy once' is usually a D-VHS machine (that's what AVCapture and the others are actually emulating in the first place)

[KavMan]

Originally Posted by Paul Chiu

k-man,

same history here.... i tried for years to capture using windows with many computers and none gave me clean artifacts free results.

with apple mbp and leopard 10.5.2, i am getting a lot of clean captures.

after step 1. install according to instructions. avcvideocap.app is an important app you'll use.

irecord.app is the other app for capture.

the only other thing you'll need is a SATA connector into your MBP, about $110 and an external SATA hard drive. i got a 750gb external SATA and it's nearly full with HD shows.

that's it.

please post once your MBP is in.


paul

Hey, Thanks, Anxiously waiting for my MBP to come. Might have other questions to ask you later on if you don't mind.

BTW, You are able to stream FBN and FNC HD? I'm with TWC in Queens.

[thecaptain2279]

Well, CBSHD seems to be copy once, but NBCHD sure is not:

[paulbracciole]

has anybody in the upstate new york or new york state with time warner with the 8300 box and a imac have got to record or see a stream, why is it when i dont have the firewire hooked up to the mac it says disabled,then when i hook it up it will say univalable,tw is telling me its a dtcp issue,and wont do anything about it,after 4 months of trying to get them to fix it

[thecaptain2279]

Well, another cable system in my area has CBSHD set to copy freely, hopefully my system will soon.

[nofool]

Originally Posted by Paul Chiu

iRecord is free!

get it here, i tried the 0.4 version so far...

link:
http://www.ammesset.com/irecord/

good luck,
paul

hi.. i dont check avsforum regularly, but have been on recently looking for tips on transcoding .m2t streams (which i seem to get fine from my 8300hdc via fw with avcvideocap to my 2g intel core2 duo macbook). ideally, i want to save them in a form i could probably burn to dvd at some point, but right now, as long as i can play them on the mac, im ok. (so far, all have been copy freely)

virtualdvhs makes .tsnavi files for them (though im not sure what to do with those, ive just been leaving them in the same place), and vlc has been able to play all but one out of seven so far. ive transcoded a couple with mpegstreamclip to .mpeg streams (not bought the quicktime upgrade at this point), and tried exporting via vlc wizard to mpeg4 using mpeg 4 or h.264 compression, but it never seems to do anything except add a playlist item called Streaming/Transcoding Wizard (1/1 ...?

i would love to try irecord, since it sounds like it makes it all so simple, but i am still working in OSX 10.4.11, and the only version that appears available is the 0.5beta for leopard. is there a way i can get version 0.4 from someone, since i cant seem to find it anywhere at all to download anymore? (missed it by...that much..? ) id be very grateful for any additional tips as well!

thanx so very much!

adrien
cincinnati, twc mdn sa8300hdc; no HDtv yet, just happy with whatever content i get..
moving to nc within a month and trying to get everything off the box first

[GrahamAJones]

Originally Posted by FriarWyer

AVCBrowser can be used to send commands to the panel subunit. Without going in to great detail here, you could try:

00487CE70400xxFFFF,

where xx is the channel number from 0x00 to 0xFF (in hex).

I scanned through most of the posts on this thread and was not able to find an answer...

I just got a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4250HD for my Rogers cable service here in Toronto, and was very happy that the unadvertised and unsupported Firewire input/output actually works.

I installed the latest Firewire SDK (as of June 2008) and I've been successful in using AVCVideoCap and VirtualDVHS to capture non-encrypted streams, and VLC to view live streams. It seems like about half of the channels are encrypted, but that still gives me a lot of HD content recordable through the Firewire, when I fully expected not to have any.

My issues are:

1 - I can use FriarWyer's method (quoted above) to change channels by Firewire using AVCBrowser-- it works great! However, AVCVideoCap and FireRecord (formerly iRecord) do NOT successfully change the channel, and the Applescripts on this thread are out of date and unusable.

Is there way of sending these channel change hex codes to my SA 4250HD through an Applescript, bypassing the AVCBrowser application? Or am I stuck using GUI scripting to send keystrokes to AVCBrowser?

2 - FireRecord does not record my streams successfully, even for unencrypted channels.

Thanks,
Graham Jones
(Developer of iEye Captain for EyeTV, in case you're interested)

[kaadray]

The code for changing channels in the SDK that avcvideocap and irecord uses is pretty straightforward. If you are a developer you might be able to create a command line app to just tune the channel pretty quickly and call that from Applescript. If I remember correctly, once you have the connection, it is just one call to get the panel subunit from the device and then one more call to send the command.

Patrick
(Former developer of iRecord/FireRecord, in case you're interested